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In Defense of Palin and Sanford

By Stanley Fish July 6, 2009 1:02 pmJuly 6, 2009 1:02 pm

I did not vote for Sarah Palin in the November election, and had I been a resident of South Carolina, I wouldn’t have supported Mark Sanford. But I find their failings and, in the case of Sanford, sins more palatable than the behavior of the pundits who are having so much fun at their expense.

Both Republican governors made rambling and sometimes halting statements of about 18 minutes (is that the canonical length for this kind of thing?), and in response the commentators speculated endlessly about why they had said what they said. The one explanation they didn’t seem capable of coming up with was that they meant it, that their words were coming from the heart, from an interior that may have been fissured and rocky, but was nonetheless (dare I use the word) genuine.

Palin had barely finished speaking when MSNBC paraded analysts from both sides of the aisle (Matt Lewis and Chris Kofinis) who agreed that (1) it was a disastrous performance and (2) they couldn’t for the life of them figure out why she had delivered it. Kofinis: “It’s hard to understand why she’s resigning.” Lewis: “What she’s essentially done is guarantee that no pundit could make any intellectual defense of her.”

Later, Joe Scarborough pronounced in the same vein: “It’s hard to find a compelling reason.” The former majority leader of her own party, Ralph Samuels, chimed in, “I’ve had a million calls today from friends, all political junkies, and everyone is asking the same questions. Is it national ambition, or does she want time to write the book, or is she just tired of it. Don’t have a clue.”

Maybe he should look at the video and pay attention this time to the reasons she gives. It is true that her statement was not constructed in a straightforward, logical manner, but the main theme was sounded often and plainly: This is not what I signed up for. I’m spending all my time and the state’s money responding to attack after attack and they aren’t going to let up because, “It doesn’t cost the people who make these silly accusations a dime.”

The accusations had been coming from all sides, from investigators of her ethics, from Alaska Democrats and fellow Republicans, from officials in the McCain campaign, from scathing magazine articles, from what she termed the mockery and humiliation directed at her son Trig, from late-night comedians taking potshots at her daughters.

She dated the beginning of her trials and tribulations from the moment in August, 2008, when “political operatives descended on Alaska digging for dirt.” She complained that “millions of dollars go down the drain in this new political environment.” She signaled repeatedly her weariness with the “superficial political blood–sport” politics has become. She returned to her own sport, basketball, to explain that because she had become a distraction she was going to do what a good point guard always does, pass the ball to someone (her lieutenant governor) in a better position to make the shot. And in the end she earned the declaration that “I have given my reasons plainly and candidly.”

But the pundits didn’t want to hear them or, rather, they were committed to believing that the real reasons lay elsewhere, and were strategic. They couldn’t fathom the possibility that she was just giving voice to her feelings. It must, they assumed, be a calculation, and having decided that, they happily went on to describe how bad a calculation it was.

They did this even when reporting on something that might have given them pause. It was generally agreed that because the statement was structurally chaotic, even formless, Palin had written it herself. No self-respecting political operative would have produced something so badly crafted. One would have thought that this would be seen as evidence of the absence of calculation, but instead it was received as evidence of her Alaska-limited understanding of politics. (Doesn’t she know, they asked, that resigning is no way to run for president?) Rather than reasoning from what they took to be the political ineptitude of her performance to the possibility that it wasn’t political, they just continued on their merry, muckraking way.

They did the same thing when Mark Sanford followed his disjointed confession with other confessions and with lyrical, over-the-top statements about the love of his life and crying in Argentina. (All this against the backdrop of the e-mails that were giving media would-be comedians a field day.) Why doesn’t he stop talking?, the pundits asked. Why doesn’t he shut up? Doesn’t he see the damage he’s doing to his career and his party?

Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t, but it didn’t matter because he wasn’t doing politics; he was doing cri de coeur, serial meanderings about sin, weakness, mistakes, duty, responsibility, irresponsibility and, above all, passion.

The ineptness of his remarks on every level was staggering; politically he was busy digging his own grave; personally, in terms of his family life, he was digging another. He declared in one breath that he was trying to fall back in love with his wife, and in the next he told the world that this was a love story, “a forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day.”

The commentators thought they were covering the latest chapter in the male-politician-who-can’t-keep-his-pants-zipped saga. What they were really covering (although they just couldn’t see it) was the latest chapter in the “all for love” saga, with earlier chapters featuring Antony and Cleopatra, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. (O.K., so his stage is not as large as theirs, but it displays the same drama.) Sanford’s actions were without doubt foolish, reprehensible and incredibly maladroit, but they were also real.

So what’s the bottom line story? Simple. Sanford is in love. Palin is in pain. Sometimes what it seems to be is what it is.

Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford have lowered public discourse with their linguistic (to say nothing of moral) incoherence. How can you — a Milton scholar and professor of literature — defend their tactics?

Your point may be true – I can certainly be empathic toward their feelings of love and pain. However, my problem with Sanford and Palin is with the damage they have brought on the political system with their antics. In the case of Sanford, I don’t care that he has had an affair – that is between him and his family. I do care that he acted irresponsibly as a governor running off without anyone knowing where he was, and that he likely spent state funds in pursuit of his romance. I find this all the more egregious since he has built his reputation around being fiscally conservative. Finally, and worst of all, he voted to impeach President Clinton for doing what he himself has now done. This sort of hypocrisy is tremendously damaging to our political world.

With regard to Palin, she was elected to be governor of her state. If she is indeed resigning because she can’t take it any longer, fine. However, if she is doing so because she thinks that she can now be President, I resent the hubris that allows her to consider taking on a far more difficult job when she could not handle the heat of her current one. And, finally, in the campaign, wasn’t it Sarah Palin who was throwing around the most barbed statements and accused a sitting Senator of “pailing around with terrorists?”

These are the acts that are unforgiveable – not the love and the pain.

It is difficult to take at face value what Palin has to say, given her history of serial lying. According to the recent Vanity Fair article, even the McCain campaign was internally plagued by her “looseness” with the truth.

Sarah Palin in pain? Not possible for a narcissist. She’s a quitter who lacks both courage and integrity. She didn’t prepare her state, her successor, or even bother to give 30 days notice! Too busy slaying salmon and twittering to those who think pit bulls in lipstick should be running the country.

What strikes me about both of them is that they are making public appeals for compassion after having been notably short of it themselves when dealing with others. It is hard to be concerned about the feelings of those who have so little capacity for treating others decently. Especially when the public good is part of their jobs. I think their states will be better off if they step aside.

Fair enough, but what I wonder is this: how in the world do such unformed and immature human beings get themselves elected to positions of such authority? And what does this say about those who elect them?

I am wondering if you actually listened to Palin’s entire statement. She did not say only that she was resigning to spare herself and the state from inexpensive, supposedly frivolous legal proceedings. She also said that she did not want to be a lame duck governor. In fact, she stated that lame duck governors take expensive trips abroad, have fun, and milk the opportunity for their personal enjoyment (my paraphrase).

The statements about not wanting to be a lame duck revealed Palin’s fantastic absurdity. If she wanted to be an effective governor even while a lame duck, she could have abstained from the selfish practices she disdained. Instead, she showed a primitive way of thinking: all or nothing. Either she is a bad governor or no governor at all. In the end, she affirmed how much she personalizes the political, to the detriment of women’s image everywhere. Bill Clinton endured frivolous impeachment proceedings, and he didn’t quit. (His family was insulted, as well.)

Part of a democracy is the people’s right to file complaints. To denigrate this process is to diminish the value of democracy. Ultimately, if Palin had not made so many professional blunders along the way, there would not have been so many opportunities to file complaints that were, according to your view, her downfall (along with her desire not to be a lame-duck governor, which cannot be polished by any semantics at all, not even yours).

This article was stupid. Sanford’s infidelity may not have been just about sex, but it was still wrong. And he and all involved would have been better off if he had shut up.

Palin did not give a clear reason for why she resigned. No one who saw the press conference could point to an articulate explanation. It raised more questions than answers. It will come out sooner or later.

The pundits are right to question them both. And as a journalist, Fish should know better than to just take their initial explanation. If others had, we would still think Sanford had just gone for a hike on the Appalachian trail.

If your analysis is correct, Palin’s own logic would rule out a POTUS run in 2012. After all, if she is sick of the money wasted to attack her as an Alaskan governor, imagine how much more will be wasted during a presidential campaign.

Time will tell on whether she was really sick of the “blood-sport” politics or interesting in her personal political career. A presidential run would undermine that stance… though it would not be the first time her actions/statement were logically incoherent.

Palin is nuts. Her claims of a “higher calling” can be nothing but scary. This delusional broad still thinks she’s going to bring her fascist brand of conservatism to the masses. Clearly she doesn’t understand how resoundingly she, McCain, and their prohibitionist agenda were defeated last year.

These may be expressions of genuine feelings by Palin and Sanford. However, the root of the criticisms of them is the hypocrisy of their messages. Both were quick to publicly criticize others as “palling around with terrorists” or in Sanford’s case, recommending that Clinton resign because he lied about sex with someone other than his wife.

In the end, they are public figures and if they want to avoid public critiques they should find a regular job and stay out of the limelight. I assure you, Palin hasn’t left the stage, for one, and Sanford has not resigned. They deserve and have literally brought on the very scrutiny they deride.

If Sarah Palin had said she was resigning due to the strain all of this has put on her family, it would be one thing. But to make the claims to righteousness that she has … implying that she’s above the mean politics (she’s quite good at it), that she doesn’t want lame duck status (then why not just wait another year to announce that you won’t run again? she didn’t have to say that now), that it’s about serving her country, a higher call … well, it’s more hypocrisy coming from this woman who is quite good at dirty politics. And I don’t buy that her kid’s sex life should have been off limits, either. Norrmally, I’d say leave kids out of anything having to do with their parents’ political career. But she was running specifically to shore up the social ultra-conservative base, and pointing to her daughter’s pregnancy (i.e. not abortion) as evidence of her values. They made her daughter’s boyfriend show up at political events, etc., and made a big point of assuring us all that the two would be marrying (as if a shot-gun marriage showed good judgment). So, in this case, the candidate MADE her kids part of race, and it was fully appropriate to cover developments related to them. Then Sarah engaged in a running nasty argument with a teenager via the media (better judgment would be “no comment”). She brought most of her troubles on herself, as is usually the case with human beings.

I might be somewhat moved and maybe even persuaded by your reasoning if the woman had done one simple deed during her run for the office of Vice President to repair the formerly earned moniker “barracuda”. Who can ever forget the vituperative lies she and her campaign spokespersons directed at her then-opponent, our current President? The shouts for blood (literally) leading up to her appearances at campaign events make pale what she more recently has called ” the ‘superficial political blood–sport’ politics has become”.
Maybe we should look at those videos and pay attention to why some of us want to know more about what makes this demigoddess click… robert

1.) Had you done more research, you would know that Sanford’s AP interview spanned a 6 hour time frame.

Pundits could not have done him any more harm than he had already done to himself after that. This ignores the fact that he used public monies to do it with.

2.) After having skinned Clinton alive for having done the exact same thing (to become an adulterer, then lie about it) his hypocrisy renders him deserving of every second of the bad press that is resultant of his “sins.”

3.) As for Palin, the ambiguity surrounding her resignation is reason in itself for pundit-generated speculation and bad press. The people of Alaska deserve to know the reason behind her abandonment of them.

I agree about Sanford. But Palin has lied so often and so
thoroughly in her brief career that it would be utterly naive
to take anything she says at face value. Even if it made
sense, which it evidently doesn’t: it’s freaking obvious that
when you run for office as Governor – and even more so
when you run for VP – that you’re “signing up” for intense
scrutiny of your actions. If you can’t stand the heat, you
shouldn’t have applied for a job as a cook.

I expect within the next couple of months we’ll see Palin
signing a multi-million dollar contract for a TV show, where
she can spout her uninformed opinions on various issues
and have a suitably large budget for wardrobe and makeup.
Then once she’s made money for a few years, she’ll venture
back into national politics probably looking for a Senate
seat: her act seems to go over better with the Alaskan
electorate than the nation as a whole. Anyway, the
Republican nomination for 2012 is not much of a prize:
Obama is going to have all the power of incumbency, a
bazillion dollars in his warchest, demographics still
trending heavily towards the Dems, and very probably a
high level of personal popularity. The smart Repubs
(if there are any) should be looking to position themselves
for 2016.

I agree with poster #10. I have nothing against Sanford or Palin, and I certainly have no love for commentators who revel in other people’s public humiliation and pain. (Printing Sanford’s private emails was low, low, low.) But I can’t spare them too much sympathy, considering the way they treated others in similar situations. When Palin and Sanford were on top, they seemed more than happy to bare their fangs, along with disgusting amounts of moralizing and self-righteousness. Reminds me of that saying, “be nice to people you meet on the way up; you meet the same ones on the way down.” May they both find peace and happiness in public life. And I hope no one buys their books.

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Stanley Fish is a professor of humanities and law at Florida International University, in Miami. In the Fall of 2012, he will be Floersheimer Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Duke University and the University of Illinois, Chicago. He is the author of 15 books, most recently “Versions of Antihumanism: Milton and Others”; “How to Write a Sentence”; “Save the World On Your Own Time”; and “The Fugitive in Flight,” a study of the 1960s TV drama. “Versions of Academic Freedom: From Professionalism to Revolution” will be published in 2014.